


So Many Lines

by octobersymphony



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Developing Relationship, Hotel Sex, Implied/Referenced Cheating, M/M, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-04
Updated: 2007-03-04
Packaged: 2017-12-23 03:21:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/921399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/octobersymphony/pseuds/octobersymphony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two former F1 drivers and a road trip across the USA.</p>
            </blockquote>





	So Many Lines

  
_How come the road that's less traveled has so many lines?_  
[Matt Caplan, "The Road Less Traveled"]   


At three in the morning, he calls from a hotel room in Vegas, as if that's the most natural thing in the world. You're dazed and break into a sweat, your body objecting to the sudden and unpleasant interruption of sleep.

"Fancy a game of poker, mate?" he asks, and you kind of hope he's drunk, even though you know he's not. This is exactly the thing Eddie Irvine does when he's stone cold sober, and he knows it annoys the shit out of you.

"If I wanted to waste my money gambling, I'd go to the casino around the corner, not fly out to Las Vegas in the middle of the night. Do you have any idea how late it is?"

"Shit, you're so fucking boring," he mutters, obviously annoyed, and you think that's a fucking riot. He calls you at night, wakes you up and asks you to come to Vegas for no good reason, and _he_ gets to be pissed at _you_ when you don't jump at the offer. Only Eddie Irvine…

You're almost tempted to put down the receiver and go back to bed, but something holds you back. It's not like Eddie calls you every week. In fact, this is the first you heard from him in years, and you're not quite prepared to give that up yet.

"Who's that?" Suddenly, Tanja is beside you, awake and less than happy at the night's interruption. She stands in the doorway in her blue nightgown, arms crossed in front of her chest and looking at you like it's your fault the phone rang at 3 am. _You better have a good explanation for this_ , her eyes say, and the first thing that comes to your mind is a stupid, transparent lie.

"Just the management. Some urgent contract issues."

Which is all good and well, except, "Your management calls you about gambling? At this time of the night?" – and it figures that she heard the bit about the casino.

At the other end of the line, Eddie laughs. "You can't lie for shit!"

You want to tell him that not being able to tell a convincing lie well makes you a better person, that this is a good thing, but the way Tanja looks at you, irritated and still waiting for an answer, makes you wonder if that's really true. 

"It's Eddie," you admit with a sigh, "he's drunk and wants me to come to Vegas. You know how he gets. Just… go back to bed; I'll be there in a minute." Instead of placating her, that piece of information seems to have the opposite effect on your wife. She purses her lips and nods, not speaking another word as she turns around and leaves.

Watching her retreating form, you rub your temples to drive the onset of a headache away. 

"Sorry to interrupt your cosy family idyll there," Eddie says cheerfully, not sounding the least bit sorry. "I'm not drunk, though, and you should come. We could stay here for a day and then drive down to my house in Miami. You need to fucking get out more before you rot."

"Charming. As tempting as the prospect of driving through the USA with you is, I can't."

"Oh, right." You hear him snap his fingers in a fake gesture of realization. "I forgot. You're a family man. You have better things to do. Changing diapers, grocery shopping, making another brat. Sounds like fun."

There's only so much shit you will take, even from Eddie.

"I'm hanging up now." You end the call on the last word without giving him a chance to protest. Still, you stay close to the phone for another two minutes, half-expecting Eddie to ring again. The phone remains silent, though, and eventually you go back to bed.

* * *

Tanja won't talk to you the next morning. From experience, you know she'll calm down eventually, but you also know that it's best to stay out of her way until she does. After the quiet, subdued affair that's breakfast, she takes the girls out without telling you where they're going.

You're tired and your head aches, and when the doorbell rings it's uncomfortably loud and shrill. It's a UPS delivery guy, who hands you a small manila envelope.

"What's that?"

The delivery guy shrugs and points to the 'Delta Air Lines' stamp in the top corner. "Shouldn't you know when you order plane tickets, man?" 

"I didn't," you say and reluctantly take the envelope, like it's poisonous. You throw it on the kitchen counter without opening it. After all, you know what's inside.

But Tanja's silent treatment continues and you get bored on day two P.P. (short for 'post-phone call'), so you finally open the offending envelope and find a one-way ticket to Las Vegas, valid for one week, inside. It shouldn't be tempting, but it is, because right now your apartment feels at the same time too crowded and so very lonely, and the prospect of getting out and away seems more alluring with every hour.

Day three P.P. passes much like days one and two, Tanja and the kids out and you alone at home, except that some time in the afternoon, you find yourself in the hallway with a packed suitcase in your hand and the ticket in your jacket and a cab waiting outside. Of course, this is a bad idea – you know that even now – and you should at least call Tanja and let her know where you're going. But in a moment of childish petulance, you decide not to. If she doesn't talk to you, then why should you talk to her?

On the way to the airport in Nice, you almost call her five times, though. You almost ask the driver to turn around and take you back to your place nine times, and you nervously flip your phone open and shut at least two-hundred times. You actually count, for a while.

But then you're on the plane and there's no going back, and you try to attribute the queasy feeling in the pit of your stomach to the turbulences.

_* * *_

You put off calling Eddie until you change planes for the second time, in L.A. You just want to find out where he's staying in Vegas, but he insists in fetching you from the airport himself. He sounds just a little smug and gloating, no more than you expected, and you decide to let it slide. After all, if you wanted to fight, you might as well have stayed at home.

The twenty hours you spent in various planes have left you with an unsettled, almost claustrophobic feeling, and you're itching to get out and go somewhere. The sight of Eddie waiting for you at the check-out, slouched casually against a pillar, is more than welcome. It's been a couple of years since you last saw each other. In fact, you haven't so much as spoken to one another ever since you ran into him at the Monaco Grand Prix two years after his retirement. In the light of that, the phone call should have been more of a surprise. But it's Eddie Irvine, and you've long since learned to expect the unexpected where he's concerned.

He looks different, older, not quite as lean as he used to, and his hair could do with a cut. He's not twenty-five anymore, and it's showing. You wonder what he sees when he looks at you. He barely does, though, just pushes himself away from the pillar, and gives you a sideward glance from underneath his base-cap. 

"There you are. About bloody time," he says in lieu of a greeting, as if you hadn't just flown halfway across the world to meet him. You try not to let his casual dismissal bother you. After all, what else did you expect?

* * *

Las Vegas is bright and colourful, all neon lights and blinking adverts. It should be the perfect place to lose yourself for a while, but for some reason it isn't; it makes you feel edgy and wears you down within hours. You lose a couple of hundred dollars at the slot machines, then win at craps, only to lose a grand at the roulette table. Eddie remains at your side, close enough to remind you that the man never understood the concept of personal space. He makes no effort to hide his amusement at your bad luck, and when you ask him why he's not playing, he says he won fifty grand the night before and it's always been his philosophy to stop on a high.

You don't even know whether it's the truth or a massive lie to needle your ego, but you feel an irrational resentment towards him anyway. You grind your teeth and turn away, but your resolve to ignore him only lasts for about ten minutes.

Later, when you're alone in your room, you feel like you're suffocating and you lie awake for hours until you give up. 

You spend hours staring out of the window, enjoying the spectacular view over Sin City. Maybe coming here was a huge mistake. You think about calling Tanja, even about taking the next plane home, but you don't. You consider going to Eddie's room, because all this was his idea and it's his fault that you're miserable now, but you know that's not true and you stay where you are.

It's four in the morning when you go back to bed. You fall asleep almost instantly and sleep dreamlessly and uninterrupted until Eddie pounding against your door wakes you at half past eight. He looks better than the day before, which makes you even more acutely aware that you most likely look worse than ever. If Eddie notices, though, he doesn't say anything, not even the custom jibe you've come to expect.

He flops down on the bed and keeps his eyes on you as he says, "So, I figured we'd better be on our way. Unless you'd rather stay here," and it's the best thing you've heard all week.

You're halfway down to Phoenix by noon, and you've never been happier to leave a place behind you.

* * *

When the sun is setting and you try to agree on where to spend the night, you find that your taste in hotels is pretty much incompatible. You tell him you don't get why you have to spend five-hundred dollars on a fancy hotel room. "All we need is a bed," you say.

Eddie raises an eyebrow and laughs a little dirtily, and you feel the blood rising to your cheeks, because you didn't mean it like that.

In all those years you've known him, you slept with Eddie three times. Once, back in Japan; it was the first time you've ever done anything with a guy and you were both so drunk you could only remember fragments of it in the morning. 

It should have been awkward and weird between you after that, and it probably would have been, with anyone else. But Eddie just shrugged it off like it was no big deal, put on his sunglasses and went on with his life.

The second time was almost a decade later, in Melbourne in 1999, after Eddie's first victory. You were both giddy from finishing on podium, running high on adrenaline and past the sober stage by miles. Tanja was back at home, thousands of miles away, where she might as well have been in another reality. In a way, she was. It seemed just _right_ to go from sharing a congratulatory hug to frantic, clumsy kissing and stumbling back to your room together.

The third time was at the very end of that season. You'd come to seek out Eddie in the hotel bar. His anger and bitterness surprised you; you had never seen him quite like that before. He looked at you with an unfamiliar hardness in his eyes. "Let's get out of here," he told you, and in between the tone and the gleam in his eyes, you could suddenly clearly see how the night would continue: rough hands bruising your skin, his stubble burning your cheeks with every kiss, and his body a heavy weight on yours, pressing you down on the bed. You knew instinctively that he would fuck you that night – nothing you'd ever done before, and the thought excited and scared you at equal measure. You let it happen like that, because it seemed as if the happenings of that night were already written and it seemed foolish to try and stop them.

Each time, you told yourself it was the last time and promised you wouldn't let it happen again. Because out of all of Eddie's flaws – and they were numerous – the one that you couldn't deal with was that he didn't seem to _care_. You would have understood confusion or anger – have him yell at you, or even lash out at you. You'd even have, in a strange way, found it comforting if he'd demanded that you talk about it – not that you'd have had any idea what to say. But this total, casual indifference, as if he didn't care at all that he'd had sex with a fellow driver, was too much for you to take. And yet, you didn't protest much when it happened the second time, or the third.

And now you are here, on a pointless road trip straight through the USA, and you try to be at least a little surprised when you realize that Eddie has rented only one room for the two of you. It's the sort of insolent assumption that's typical Eddie Irvine, and you can't bring yourself to get upset about it.

* * *

This is how it goes: you cover an impressive mileage every day, never staying more than one night in one city. Eddie constantly breaks the speed limit, and he never lets you take a turn behind the wheel of his Ferrari. You sit on the passenger seat and alternative watch the landscape flying past you and Eddie beside you. The stretches of silence between you are long but oddly void of awkwardness, only interrupted by brief, matter-of-fact exchanges about where to have lunch or where to stay for the night.

You sleep in middle and upper range hotels with clean, large rooms, mini-bars and room-service. It's always Eddie who checks in and you're content to let him, not only because it means that he's paying but mostly because taking the liberty to simply book only one room without asking first wouldn't come easy to you. If you were the one handling the check-in, you'd probably have to talk about it… about this, whatever it is. But you're not, and so there's no talking.

There's no talking, only touches and eager, hungry kisses, his body heavy and hard on top of yours. You fall into it as if it's the easiest, most natural thing in the world, as if it was always like this. You feel a little out of your depth, because it shouldn't be so easy, and the need to ask Eddie what the hell it is you two are doing and actually talk about it gets a little stronger with every city. There's nothing that indicates that Eddie is even the slightest bit bothered by it, though, and you instinctively know that he wouldn't react well if you started to ask questions. So you keep your mouth shut, even if it gets harder every day. It doesn't surprise you at all that Eddie doesn't seem to care whether the lights stay on or not. You sometimes wonder whether Eddie even cares that it's you filling the space in his bed, or if could be just anyone, and you hate yourself a little for not letting that thought stop what you're doing.

You know that you've got a problem there, but maybe if you don't think about it, you can ignore it until it goes away. Except you have this nagging suspicion that it _won't_ go away.

* * *

You call home from Atlanta, and your hand is shaking as you dial the numbers because it's been almost six days now, and considering the way you left, you're not sure if anyone will answer the phone. You're not sure if you even _have_ a home anymore.

Your relief when Tanja picks up at the fifth ring is palpable, but when you open your mouth, you suddenly can't remember all the carefully prepared things you wanted to tell her. It's like your mind is wiped clear, and your tongue feels heavy and numb.

"Um, hey. It's me," you say, and it makes you wince.

"Hey," she says – just one word, but there's so much emotion behind it, so much tiredness and resignation and subdued anger that you just know that, no matter what you say and how much you apologize, it won't ever be enough. It makes you wish you hadn't called.

You ask how the girls are.

"They're fine. Lea keeps asking where her daddy went. You could at least have kissed them goodbye instead of just sneaking out like a thief." There's no open anger in her voice, just disappointment. It feels like a slap in your face in a way anger never could. "So, are you coming home?"

"Of course I am," is your instinctive reply, before you realize that she probably didn't mean in general (the realization that you expected and maybe even wanted her to be in doubt about that is chilling), but whether you'd come home _now_. And you're not quite ready for that. "Not just yet, though."

There's silence at the other end of the line. Seconds tick by, and you're afraid that she's ended the call, but then she asks, "How do you see this ending, Heinz? You come home and we pretend you never ran off with Eddie Irvine on some Peter Pan adventure because you suddenly discovered your mid-life crisis?" She spits Eddie's name with a viciousness that makes you wonder whether she wouldn't have preferred it if you acted out your mid-life crisis the ordinary way: buy a big, flashy car (boat, plane, whatever) and have an affair with the nanny.

Miserably, you tell her, "I don't know."

"You don't know," she echoes, the sarcasm heavy and biting, "well, what _do_ you know?" 

Resting your head against the wall, you close your eyes, screw them shut tightly as if the resulting flashes of colour before your eyes can give you the answers you're looking for. "Look, Tanja, I know I'm asking a lot, but can we… not talk about this now. Can you just wait until I come home and then I promise you we'll sort it out." 

But you can't promise that, and you know that she knows, even as she unenthusiastically agrees. The phone call solved nothing, didn't make anything easier or less likely to go up in flames, but it perversely helped to calm down your conscience. You choose not to explore that, because you know that the road of denial and self-deception will only lead you this far.

* * *

It's you who picks the cheap motel somewhere down Interstate 95. When you enter your room, Eddie calls it a fucking shithole, but he drops his bags on the bed anyway.

"See, this is the kind of places you stay at when you go on a road trip," you tell him and smile through his glare.

"Says who?" He's still wearing his ever-present sunglasses, and you have to admit that he does look somewhat out of place here. "And what, pray tell, is better about this than the four-star Hyatt at Jacksonville we could have stayed at?" He's towering over you as you sit down on the bed, testing the too-soft mattress before you reach up and tug at his wrist. For a moment, he resists, but then he gives in and lets you and gravity have their way. He tumbles on top of you, a heavy, bruising weight that pushes you down. You close your eyes and smile. Your fingers are still wrapped loosely around his wrist. You can feel the rhythmic drum of his pulse against your thumb. For a moment, you feel completely calm, almost peaceful, because it seems that there's only this: him, you, this room. It's another world, far from the reality of your lives, far from Tanja and the kids, far from who you are when the cameras turn on you and you climb into a cockpit.

"Thank you," you whisper against the side of his neck where your mouth brushes his skin.

When you feel him moving, you tighten the hold on his arm, not wanting this moment to end yet. He doesn't go far, though, merely pushing himself up a few inches. "What the hell for?" he asks, and you know that his shades hide a confused little frown.

You reach up with your free hand and pull the sunglasses off, flinging them across the bed. "For this. This trip. Taking me along." _I needed that_ , you think, but you leave those words unspoken, trusting that Eddie will hear them between the lines.

Eddie's features soften. "Yeah, well, you're a daft bugger, but I thought it might be fun." Before you can protest that maybe 'fun' is the wrong word, he kisses you.

The mattress is too soft and the bed creaks and when it starts to rain, late at night, it leaks through the window frame. It's cool and damp in the room; you shiver and reach for the single blanket Eddie is hogging. 

Eddie's arm curves around your waist and pulls you against him. When cool fingers brush against the stripe of bare skin on your belly your shirt left when it rode up, you shiver. 

"That's the last fucking time you ever get to choose the hotel," he mutters sleepily into your hair. "We could have had air-condition and a hot tub and a shitload of blankets but instead we get to have _this_."

You smile and privately, you think that 'this' is not so bad.

* * *

The weather has taken a turn for the better by the time you reach Miami, sunny blue skies and warm, humid air. Eddie parks the Ferrari in the driveway and leads you into the house.

"Make yourself at home. Mi casa es su casa, and all that crap."

No one can accuse Eddie Irvine of having less than immaculate taste. The house is beautiful: vast and white and luxurious, stylish black-and-white interior design, floor-to-ceiling windows, a swimming pool and palm trees in the backyard. The afternoon sun gives it all a warm, golden glow. You step outside the terrace and take a deep breath. There's a sense of freedom clinging to the place that you never felt in your small Monaco apartment, almost like back home at your mother's place in Spain. 

You don't hear Eddie stepping up behind you until he's beside you, holding out a bottle of beer for you to take. You accept it with a small smile and the two of you drink in comfortable, solemn silence. The pressing need to talk that's been bothering you those last few days seems to have evaporated at once, and you suddenly feel as disinclined to talk this through as Eddie apparently is, as if words would only destroy the peace of the moment, let reality back in with its complications and duties. 

You keep your eyes focused on the pool until the bright cyan blue of the water blurs before your eyes and it feels as if you're falling and falling and falling, and you have to close your eyes to steady yourself. It's only when you hear Eddie shifting beside you that you open them again. You follow him to the edge of the terrace, leaning on the balustrade next to him. The view is breath-taking, palm trees and mansions and, in the distance, the sky touching the ocean.

"Lovely, ain't it?" There's something in Eddie's voice that's unfamiliar, almost wistful, and you wonder how often he comes here. You remember reading reports in the press that he hid out here after he retired, but you know for a fact that you've never seen any photos. He probably never brought any reporters to this place – which begs the question who else he did bring here. Somehow, you don't think there were all that many people who got to see this. You certainly didn't see a guest room when he gave you a brief tour around the house. You try not to read too much into this but give up the attempt after a few seconds because the idea that maybe this isn't as casual for Eddie as you always thought it was makes you feel almost light-headed and pleased and a little scared as well.

"It's beautiful. Seems like a good place to retreat to, to make decisions where no one can bother you."

Eddie chuckles and takes a swing from the bottle. "Bollocks! I never made any decisions here. I came here to come to terms with the decisions I already made." It's possibly the deepest and most significant thing you've ever heard Eddie say, and you're painfully aware that he's not just talking about himself. 

You press the cool glass of the beer bottle against your forehead and close your eyes. Against your skin, the glass warms quickly, but you don't take it away because it's a comfortable position and moving would require an amount of energy you can't seem to summon up at the moment.

Eddie doesn't say anything, no smartass quip or biting remark. He doesn't touch you either, but you can feel his presence beside you, anchoring you in a strange, inexplicable way. With no conversation, nothing to measure it by, time stretches and melts away like the clocks on a Dalí painting. You stand like that in silence, almost shoulder to shoulder with barely half an inch between you, for what could be minutes or hours.

Eddie is the first to speak, later.

"Better get inside. Looks like it'll rain soon."

You nod and push yourself up. Eddie is already back in the house, and it's only when you're on the threshold that you find your voice again. "Can I stay for a while?" You almost wince at how unsure and unconvincingly forced casual you sound. 'A while' is a very vague term; it could mean anything from a few hours to several months. 

Eddie doesn't even turn around to you. "Sure, whatever. Stay as long as you like." He's much better at the whole casual thing than you are, but you can't help noticing how some of the tension seems to leave his body and his back looks less rigid all of a sudden. Maybe you're beginning to learn how to read him after all.

When you turn back to close the door behind you, you smile. Outside, it's starting to rain.

End.


End file.
